[WARNING: This post includes an uncharitable hyperbolic depiction of Christians. If this is the sort of thing you’re inclined to be offended by I recommend skipping this post, or at least the section titled "They are sneaky, Needle. Keep your eyes open."]
Recently the subject matter in my tutoring has taken a turn for the, uh, less straightforwardly academic with three of my students. This happened all the sudden, at pretty much the same time, for reasons I can’t fathom. I’d say it’s simply because we know each other better, but I’ve known one student for five months, another for about two months, and the last for about two weeks. Maybe it’s a vibe I’m giving off. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe there is no such thing as time and this is all a kind of false past/present dichotomy. I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll have a better read on it than I do.
Kit Kat is less about fattening and more about evil.
Penny, not her real name, decided that because I am skinny I can advise her on a weight loss regimen. Never mind that I’m a 40 year old man and she is a 17 year old girl. My skinniness is all the evidence she needs of my fitness wisdom. I was inclined to brush this off because it seemed weird territory for us to explore together, but she started pressing me on my opinion on the Atkins Diet, which (no offense Atkins Dieters in my life) is madness. So I couldn’t let it pass.
Now our lessons revolve around reading Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, which involves many tangents to discuss evolution by natural selection and even more asides for personal affirmation. “You do not need to lose weight {NOTE: she really doesn’t}. But if you want to eat in ways that are good for you, we can talk about that.” She heartily agrees with me. Of course, I don’t believe that she believes but at least it’s got her rapt English attention. That’s the point, I suppose, but I’d happily trade her English ability for her being content with her physical self.
They are sneaky, Needle. Keep your eyes open.
Needle, not her real name, goes to Catholic school. She’s 11 and I tutor in her home with Pole (clearly not her real name but one a Thai person could totally have), her mother, never more than a room away. I’ve been going there for five months and prior to a few weeks ago I had no sense of how they felt about me. They laugh at my jokes and all that, but, for example, Needle doesn’t know the name of their housekeeper and I had no reason to suspect she thought any more of me. I've slowly come to realize that I’m closer to Needle and Pole than I supposed. Or at least that they appreciate me more than I knew. This feeling crystallized last week when Needle and I were reviewing her class schedule that includes, what I call, “Jesus Class.”
Like virtually all Thai people, Needle’s family is Buddhist. I asked if she also had “Buddha Class” and she said no. I asked if she thought that was weird and she didn’t follow. After several rounds of Socratic questioning we arrived at me bluntly telling her, “Christians are sneaky, Needle. They think Jesus is better than Buddha. Do you believe in Jesus? No, but they make you go to Jesus Class. Do you believe in their god? No, but they make you pray to him, even thank him for your food when that’s clearly the jurisdiction of Thai spirits. They do this because they want you to believe in Jesus and their god. Be careful, Needle. They are sneaky. Keep your eyes open.”
Pole was in the room the whole time we were having this conversation. I had no idea how she’d feel about it. After all, she was the one who sent Needle to Catholic school and there I was telling her daughter that, in effect, her teachers had a secret agenda antithetical to her beliefs. Some people might take this as me undermining her education and yell at me (I know this because it has happened). I figured Pole would jump in if something struck her as untoward. Near the end of my blunt warning that “Christians are sneaky… Keep your eyes open,” Pole came over to the table and stood between Needle and me.
Needle and Pole are a hybrid of daughter/mother and best friends. I’ve never seen Pole be stern with Needle. I’ve seen her get flustered. I’ve seen her get upset. But I’ve never seen her strike a posture and take tone that unequivocally conveyed, “Do not frak with me otherwise I will rain fire down on you.” With a stern air Pole looked down at me as I finished my warning. I wondered if she was about to fire me. Then she looked at Needle and said, “Do you understand what he is saying?” Pole turned back to me. “Again, please.”
She wanted me to go through it again! This time as I went through it Pole translated everything into Thai for Needle so she could follow my admonition detail by detail. I got the sense that this wasn’t something they’d talked about before. It’s entirely possible that Pole hadn’t really considered the religious indoctrination aspect of Catholic school. Needle also has a class dedicated to the history of her school that prompted Pole to quip with a degree of sarcasm I'd never before heard from a Thai person, “That will help her a lot in her future career.” But it’s a “good” (and no doubt expensive) school. So maybe Pole figures these befuddling, pointless classes are a small price to pay for a “good” education. I’m not sure but it’s now seemingly clear that while Needle and Pole might not remember my name, they are unlikely to forget me anytime soon.
What’s the remaining 30%?
And then there is Ewan. Clearly not his real name. Ewan is 12 and of my kids he’s the one who most openly resists doing any actual work. Not necessarily because it’s difficult, his spoken English is fluent if slightly sing-songy (we work on grammar), but rather because there’s so much he wants to talk about that he can’t be bothered with mundane drivel. Why review subject/verb agreement when we could be talking about Star Wars, Spiderman, video games, toys, and--as of a couple weeks ago--girls.
Ewan is in the midst of a crush and was looking for guidance. Since being skinny doesn’t necessarily mean I'm a crush expert, he asked me how many crushes I’ve had. “Ooof, dude, that’s difficult to answer. Many. Many, many.” He pressed for a number and I told him we have to get our terminology straight so I introduced him to the Crush-O-Meter.
“The crush you’ve got now is a 10. You think about her all the time. You can’t sleep. You wonder what you should do, how to act around her, what to say, what not to say. That's a classic crush. A level 1 crush is like when you’re getting ketchup at McDonald’s and there’s a girl in the way. You ask her if you can get some ketchup and when she turns to say ‘sure’ you realize she’s cute. Now you’re thinking about the cute ketchup girl. Who is she? What’s she like? Where does she go to school? You think about her a lot while you’re eating but by the end of the day you can’t quite remember what she looked like. A few days later all you remember is the fact there was a ketchup girl but nothing else. That’s a level 1 crush.”
Ewan agreed to the Crush-O-Meter metric.
“If we’re talking crushes 1-10 I can’t even comprehend how many crushes I’ve had, so let’s just talk about level 5 and up. Assuming I started having those crushes around age 10, I’d guess I’ve had about 100 crushes.”
Ewan’s jaw dropped. I should have anticipated this but it caught me off guard. Of course that number would sound inconceivable to someone in the midst of his first or possibly second crush. This seemed to nudge Ewan into thinking I’m a cad. So I explained that crushes are about feelings, but being a cad is about actions. You can’t help how you feel, but you can control how you act. That--I’m sure all of you can see--naturally rolled into talking about Buddhism.
All of the kids assume I’m Christian and are momentarily discombobulated when I disabuse them of the notion. This happened with Ewan and he asked what I am then. “I don’t really know. I’m some Buddhist, up to a point, and then I’m a bunch of other things stitched together from books, movies, and life.”
Ewan accepted that without reservation and without missing a beat replied, “I’m, like, 70% Buddhist, but at night when I think a lot about it it freaks me out.” At this point I should to point out that Thai Buddhism is itself something like 60% Buddhism, 30% pagan polytheist spiritualism, and 10% “other” ranging from Confucian to Hindu. Somehow in that swirl of influences I’ve heard some of my students talk about Buddhist hell and purgatory. I have no idea if these are orthodox concepts for Thai Buddhist in general or a translation hiccup. Whatever it is, that’s what Ewan was freaked out about: Thai Buddhist hell.
I asked, “If you’re 70% Buddhist what’s the other 30%?”
Ewan has a touch of theater in him. He glanced at the door like someone might be eavesdropping on us, then looked at me for a moment as though sizing me up, and then leaned back in chair and cooly said:
“Aliens. I’m 70% Buddhist and 30% aliens.”
Without quite being able to articulate it exactly, what Ewan had struck upon was the idea that if aliens are real then it must at least call into question some of our metaphysical beliefs. If aliens don’t have a hell to go to then why would we?
Contrary what you might imagine, I took a backseat during Ewan’s alien explanation. I merely confirmed that the odds are heavily in favor the existence of some form of aliens, and then made lots of affirmative noises and gestures. There was nothing for me to add because Ewan was already on a path of his own making. As I’ve told one of my students repeatedly, “The only thing I want for you is for you to become the you-est you that you can be. I don’t know what that is, and neither does anyone else. It’s for you to figure out and you’ve got your whole life to do it.”
ET, phone home. And take this guy too.
However these extra-curricular conversations came about they’re about to come to an abrupt halt. Some of my students have already scattered to the wind, gone back to their hometowns, scaled back their tutoring now that school is in session, or even left the country to attend high school in the UK or USA. I’ve got three weeks left with the ones who remain. For all but one that means seeing them, at most, three more times.
Is it vanity to wonder if I’ve made a difference? In the sense of “pride” or in the sense of “futility” or both? I go back and forth on it. I’m just a random stranger in a strange land blundering through their lives for a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t make a noteworthy difference in the lives of these young people because who the hell am I? The truth is I’m not entirely sure. Is that what I’m trying to inoculate them against? Figure out the you-est you because I’m still hazy on who the me-est me is. Does any of this matter? The kid I’ve spent the most time with will add up to about 40 hours in the end. A single work week. It is possible I’m over-thinking this.
Whether I made a difference or not; whether I should or shouldn’t have; I will absolutely cry the last time I see these kids. Maybe not in their presence, I hope not in their presence (too intense), but I will cry. And it’s times like this--when I can see that emotional pummeling rumbling my way three weeks out--that I wish I were 70% Alien, 20% Buddhist, and 10% Other. That way this would all be an interesting diversion, something to file in a report or blog about, rather than what it is: judgement.
Did this elephant get more out of our time together than any of my students? |
This sounds a lot like the old Self Actualization. It would be interesting as philosophy, but the psychologists ruined it by saying that it is "whatever a mental health care professional says is healthy," which is to say, whatever psychologists like. I'm busy devolving.
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